Learned Lesson Number Twenty-Three: There Is No "X" In Christmas

It is Christmas Eve, and I find myself with some alone time. Which is not the same as finding myself alone at Christmas. I am not alone, and for that, I am continually grateful. At the moment, my kids are with their father and his family, and I just came from a wonderful Swedish Christmas Eve dinner with my brother's family, my sister, and my parents. Now I am home, with a little time to contemplate the nature of Christmas. I have not done Christmas in the "traditional" way this year. Partly by choice, but mostly due to circumstance. I have not decorated, I have not written a festive rhyming Holiday Newsletter, and I have not spent a single dime on gifts for anyone. I didn't even put up a tree, although we do have a tiny artificial one in the living room that my son set up. This is not like me. Usually, I am all over Christmas, from the day after Thanksgiving until January 2nd.

The reasons for my lack of Christmas preparation this year are varied, from being overwhelmed by school and work, to not having any extra funds; from dealing with the passing of my grandmother, to just passively rebelling against the madness. I am not feeling bitter or negative, just a little on the numb side. I love Christmas, and I think I am generally pretty good at embracing the Spirit over the Sales. In fact, I avoid Black Friday like the plague it sounds like it is named after. Which is not to say that I begrudge anyone else the opportunity to get up at the crack of the night before to battle crowds over toys and electronics. Saving money is a good thing. I may even try it one day. But I have enough chaos in my life without purposely adding more. And I don't think there were shoppers pushing each other around in that small stable where it all began.

Still, I have been feeling a little down over letting the season slip by without having accomplished x,y, and z. Even though I do not buy into the crass commercialism that has taken over this sacred Holiday, I do still feel like it is my responsibility to prepare a festive and homey environment for my kids, and I feel I have failed to do that this year. My goal has always been to create a setting wherein they know that this time of the year is different than the rest of the year, because it marks the entrance into this earthly sphere of the Savior of us all.

That is an amazing thing. A thing that gets lost in the shuffle. So lost that His very name, Christ, has been replaced in some instances by an "X". I am not here to pass judgment on anyone who has ever said "Merry X-Mas", I have done it myself in the past. Before I thought about what that really meant. I don't know if the crossing out of Christ came about as a thing of convenience, or as a way to be politically correct with regard to those who might not necessarily be Christian, but removing His name from a holiday that is meant to honor His arrival seems to me to negate the holiday. As does feeling bad for not being able to afford material gifts to celebrate what was a most humble beginning. One that did not involve material wealth.

My feeling tonight is that there is no "correct" way to do Christmas. Except to remember who is being honored, and to treat those around you like He would. We should honor, recognize, and respect the holiday traditions of other faiths, as the Savior Himself would. But this does not mean dismissing or apologizing for our own. And the Holiday traditions can be wonderful. I like my eggnog, going to see Christmas lights, and hoping to experience the superpowers of mistletoe as much as the next person. I am a fan of Santa, and of gift-giving. And there is nothing wrong with that. Gift-giving is symbolic of the great gift that the Savior is to each of us. It is also fun.

However, like life, some Christmases will be richly abundant, and others will be sparse. If you are lucky, some will be both. Because it will likely be the ones that were sparse that will be most treasured and remembered. And when life is bearing down on us, sometimes there are things on our very long and detailed Christmas lists that need to be crossed off and let go of. Just be careful what you draw that "X" through, or you are in danger of losing Christmas altogether. Embrace the people you love, and let go of the rest. That is how you do Christmas right.

Lesson Number Twenty-Two: On Doubting What You Are Sure Of

You may have noticed that I omitted the word "Learned" from this particular title. That is not an oversight. Because I don't know that I can ever claim this lesson as one that is fully learned. So this is more of an exploration than a declaration. This topic has been rolling around in my head for some time now, and it is doubt that has stopped me from addressing it. Doubt in my ability to get the message right; to properly deliver it. So I have started writing, and I have stopped, and I have started again. I have been taking notes and writing down observations for weeks. Because getting this particular message right feels important to me.

About five years ago, a song lyric was brought to my attention, on at least three separate occasions, via three different sources, and in rather quick succession. So I paid attention, and I have remembered. The lyric had to do with God's mercy on those who doubt what they are sure of. The context in which I have interpreted this song lyric has evolved over the past five years, and I now believe that the over-riding message has less to do with the actual meaning of the words, and more to do with the question the words have caused me to keep asking myself; How can I keep my doubts away from what I am sure of? The answer is that I can’t. My doubts will always test the things I am sure of. And that is where the part about God’s mercy comes in. In the midst of the testing.

This blog is about the things I am sure of. The things I feel I can somewhat confidently say that I “know for sure”. Most of what I write about here has already withstood the test of my doubting long enough for me to say “this concept or principle won’t change, and I can trust it”. That is my criteria for declaring a lesson “learned”. That said, there are many things in my life that I used to be sure of, that I no longer am. But this does not have to be tragic.

When I was young and single, the one thing I was just certain I was going to get right in life was Who I Married. I fully believed that if I did everything I was taught to do, if I had faith and was obedient to God’s laws, He would not let me choose poorly. And then when marriage got really, really, hard, I was just certain that we would find a way to work through it all; that God would not allow us to fail. Obviously, finding myself divorced made me question many of the things I had previously been “sure of”, with the aforementioned “certainties” leading the list.

Nonetheless, being the ever-adaptable perpetual optimist that I am, I became certain that I would soon find someone better suited to me, that I might even have more than one contender for the position, and that, oh, “5 or so years from now”, I would finally be happily bound to the Right Man. Six years later, I am a not-so-young-yet-still-single Grandma who is going to college and writing this silly blog, trying to sort out the criteria for determining what I am “sure of”. Seeking a man does not even rank space at the far bottom of my “To-Do” list. I have handed that one off to God and am not even trying to figure out the divine time frame on it. I just trust Him.

We are all sure of certain things at certain times. If we were not, we would never make a single decision. Belief and absolute faith are powerful things. For a certain amount of time, the apostle Peter had absolute faith that he could walk on water. And he did. Right up to the moment he let doubt creep in, and then he began to sink beneath the waves. Doubt can sink us, or it can strengthen us, (sometimes both) depending on how we manage it. Recently a man I greatly admire spoke in church, (humbly, poignantly, and passionately) about the pain of seeing his parents give in to doubt in areas that were close to his heart. This served to remind him (and me) that we can only rely on the beliefs of others for so long before doubt forces us to figure out for ourselves what we are sure of. We have to test what we believe, and we do that by living it, as this particular man does. Those of us who have been recipients of his kindness have no doubts about what he believes.

In this same church meeting, there was a lot of talk about the “tender mercies” of the Lord, and I could not help but connect the message about painful doubts with the message about tender mercies. The point was made that it is the very strengthening nature of our trials that IS the tender mercy of the Lord. He allows us to have the doubts, to sink for a while, to make choices that lead to pain, so that when we reach the point that we are finally sure of something, it has value. Because He loves us. When Peter was sinking into the turbulent ocean, perhaps feeling shame for his own failing faith, he reached out for the hand of the Savior, who had mercy on him in his doubt and lifted him back up.

He will always be merciful to us in our doubts, and of that, I am sure.

In the past few months, there has been much of both the painful doubts and the tender mercies in my life. Reality has conflicted with some things I felt like I knew for sure and could count on, and I have felt like I was left drifting. Drifting and sinking. I beat myself up over and over again for my lack of faith, and this makes it hard to reach upward for the hand of the Savior when I need it. Yet it is always there. Without fail, He has been merciful to me in my doubts. Which are many, and which repeat often.

As does the lesson.

Faith. Doubt. Mercy. Repeat.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty-One: Write It Out

Initially when I see this directive, I visualize a LIST. Lists are somewhat generic, at least as far as writing goes. Write out a grocery list, a Christmas list, a list of New Years’ Resolutions, list the Pros and Cons of a tough decision. Write it out so you don’t forget it, get it in front of you, where you can see it and analyze it. Write it out so someone else will know what you need them to get/be/do for you.

I used to love to make lists. Lists are good things, and indispensible as organizational tools. Without them, we would be…well… “list-less”. OK, ok… I apologize for that bit of bad writing in this bad bit ON writing. But sometimes a bad bit makes things a bit better. Alright, I will really stop now… Anyway… Lists are also meaningless if you don’t take the action that is listed on them. Ya gotta DO things, then check them off.

But this is not what I am talking about when I say “Write it Out” in the context of this message. I am talking about passion, I am talking about problem-solving, and I am talking about how I came to discover what it is I believe I am supposed to do with my life. What’s left of it, anyway.

When I was a kid, I wrote stuff down. Kind of obsessively. I had notebooks. Like “Harriet the Spy”. Only I never wrote bad things about people, (Well. Almost never.) or had my notebooks fall into the wrong hands, subsequently destroying people’s lives. So maybe not exactly like “Harriet the Spy”, but you get the point. I started keeping journals consistently when I was about 12, and I have over 30 volumes now. I won’t tell you that these masterpieces are full of wisdom and optimism, because that would be a lie. (Although I would like to think there is some measure of both, in those precious pages.) Mostly these volumes are full of tortured observations about the boys who tempt and try me. You will notice that I said “are”, and not “were”. Girls whining about the boys who tempt and try them is one of those things in life that does not change with age. Or experience. Or marital status. I will not be debating this point. Nor will I be dwelling on it. I just want to talk about the process.

When I am feeling something extreme, something too big to handle alone, too big to contain within my weak and mortal self, whether it is good or bad, I have to write it out. Out of my head, out of my heart, out of my system. Onto a blank page. To me, there is just nothing more seductive than a blank page. My favorite thing to do when I am feeling overwhelmed is to go to Barnes and Noble and look at the blank books. At the leather-bound journals. To buy a good pen or two. Or five. To then choose the blank book that feels the most representative of where I am in life at that given moment, buy it, and proceed to fill the pages with all my STUFF. It feels good, and it keeps me sane. I think. At least it helps me FEEL sane again, if only momentarily.

To just pour every little thing, even the iceberg-variety “little things” out of my soul and onto the page is the best therapy ever. And the best follow-up therapy is to go back and read it later, when my perspective has changed. It is a way to recycle used-up feelings, hopes, and dreams, to package them with words and see if they look better out there where I can see them. Often they do. Sometimes they don’t. But always I feel a tiny bit more able to move forward, having at least contained within a book whatever is ailing me.

There is much that has been ailing me in my recent past. I pour it raw and unedited into my journals. Which my children may or may not see after I am gone, and that is ok. There needs to be a private place for that. And then sometimes, after I have read back over something of a painful, humorous, or miraculous nature that I have experienced and written about in my journal, there are parts of it that sort of leap out at me, screaming (in their little tiny animated word-voices) that there might be other people who are dealing with similar things who could possibly benefit from my perspective. So I re-write, and then I share with all of you. The still, small voice in my head, (the one that I know is not my own) helps me with the timing and the editing. It feels like the thing I am supposed to be doing, and I am grateful that this thing I feel directed to do is also a thing that I happen to love.

So whenever you are feeling burdened by a thing that hurts, doesn’t make sense, makes you want to break something, or makes you want to break into song, just write it out. Soon, while it’s fresh, and in the form it first comes to you. Once you have done that, sleep on it. Then read what you wrote. Chances are, you will have put it in some kind of order without even realizing it. You will see something you missed before. Or you will cringe, throw the paper away, and swear never to write again. But you will have learned something, I promise you. And you should write again. Whether or not you choose to share what you write, and with whom, should be handled with care. And with prayer. Because words are powerful . They can change lives. In either direction, and sometimes permanently . So choose carefully. That’s all.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty: All the Cute Boys Want Me… To Introduce Them to My Friends.

This is not going to be as much about cute boys and what they want as you might think. And I have sort of battled myself over whether to write this one, because it could be a bit like opening a vein. But I’d like to think I have a little perspective on this by age 50. Or maybe I really don’t, and that’s why I need to write about it. So here goes.

I have a sort of long and stinging history of being the “friend” to the boys. Founder and President of the “Friend Zone”, if you will. The one to whom the male of the species feel they can say, “So, tell me about this friend of yours… She’s really cute/smart/funny/sexy... (pick an adjective)… Do you think she would like me??” This dynamic dates pretty much back to grade school, and now that I am single again, it appears to still be alive and well.

Most of the time, I find this only slightly annoying. I know the drill and I cannot afford to be bothered by it. So I roll my eyes, take a deep breath, and tell them everything they want to know about my beautiful and amazing friend. And since my friends are amazing, that is an easy thing to do. I’m not saying it’s never painful, but there are worse challenges to have. The only time it really hurts is when the male in question is one for whom I myself have been holding out some measure of hope. I have only encountered this a few times in my life, but when it does happen, it is an acid burn to the heart. At any age. In order to recover from such blows, I have had to learn to file the experience under “Things That Just Are What They Are”, aka “Things I Cannot Change”. This is the file I hand off to God for processing.

Last Thursday would have been my 29^th wedding anniversary, and 3 days prior to that marked 6 years since my husband told me he wanted out. In light of the topic at hand, the irony of my marriage was that we were never really friends. Kinda tough to accept, when being a friend was the one thing I thought I was good at. In that oh-so-amicable discussion 6 years ago, he said he wanted to “remain friends”, but this has not occurred. Perhaps because you cannot remain what you have never been. But it has not been for lack of trying on my part. I have used all of my “be a good friend” chops in numerous attempts to make the aftermath smoother, but it has not seemed to help.

So the issue of the ex-husband also goes in that file I hand off to God. In fact, every challenging relationship that I have with other people goes into that file. Because no matter how kind, or clever, or well-intentioned I think I am being, I have learned that when it comes to the agency of others, I have ZERO control. Which is as it should be.

My children test me in this area consistently, particularly my youngest son, who informed me on that same Thursday last week that the school plans we had laid out for this year were not going to work for him. My response was less than stellar. There was screaming and lecturing and frustrated tears on my part, while this 13-year-old boy sat calmly, holding back his own tears and frustration, (a new level of maturity for him) waiting for me to finish my tantrum so he could tell me exactly why he was feeling what he was feeling. The jury is still out on how we will resolve this issue. And the fact that parenting this boy will never be a cakewalk is another of those things that I put in that divine file.

The bottom line is that the people I love the most are always going to choose what they want to choose, regardless of what I think, and I have found that the best (and perhaps only) way to deal with this is to change the way I think about it.

Rather than feel sorry for myself when I see my friends getting stormed by good-looking men, (and I am not so naïve as to believe there isn’t a negative flip side to that dynamic as well…) I choose instead to believe that the one man that God has reserved for me is being polished and prepared by adversity, (as am I) and will be worth the wait. (As will I.)

Rather than mourn “what might have been” in my marriage, I choose instead to celebrate the day in the temple, where I was married; to walk past the always-open door of the room where the ceremony took place, and feel hope instead of regret. I choose to be grateful for the six amazing children and two grandchildren that came from that union. And to further be grateful that the most taxing thing about them is that they are too independent!

I choose to be grateful that I had just come from the temple and had the spiritual strength to handle what felt like a devastating setback, when my son told me what he did last Thursday night. I still did not handle it very well at the time, but my son did. And now I feel like we will be able to find an answer if we work together and exercise mutual respect for one another.

There are things in life that just ARE what they are. My marriage did not make it. But the next one might. My kids will not necessarily choose the path I wish they would. But they are healthy, and they are creative and funny, and they are with me. And the cute boys might always want me to introduce them to my friends. But someday, there might be one who does not. And I only need one.

Learned Lesson Number Nineteen: Sometimes It's Best to Stay Down For Awhile

We have all heard that thing about how “it’s not important how many times you fall down, as long as you get back up again”, am I right? Well, yeah. But… Sometimes it’s ok to take a little time before you get back up. Sometimes you have to catch your breath. Or cry. Or just completely surrender to being down. Sometimes, if you stay down long enough, the oncoming train will pass right over you instead of knocking you clean out of your boots. I’m not saying always. Obviously there are times when you have to use everything you’ve got to get off the tracks poste haste. But I am not talking about those times.

It is very late tonight. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night, worked all day, have to work again in the morning, and have some homework that is not going to get done. I just do not have the mental, emotional, or spiritual fortitude to get it done. And the homework is not the only thing in my life that is not getting done. In fact, it seems like a recurring theme of my adult life has been managing the list of things that are just not going to get done. Maybe ever. And perhaps that is ok. The jury is still out on this issue. But tonight, writing this thing about staying down is the only thing that is going to get done. Tonight, I just need to stay down. And I invite you to take a load off and sit with me for a little while. Even if it means you have to leave something undone.

I used to work at WalMart. I was working at WalMart when I was thrown to the ground by divorce. To this day, WalMart still smells like divorce to me. While I was going through this experience, I kept trying to scramble back to my feet, only to repeatedly get bowled over, again and again. By things hurtling toward me from angles I never would have thought of. I knew I could survive it and that I would eventually be ok, but the process was exhausting.

I stood at my cash register every day in my cheery blue vest, watching all manner of colorful people parade their lives before me. Staring me in the face from the aisle next to the candy were the ever-present tabloid magazines, with their scandalous headlines. At that time, there was a rather high-profile celebrity love triangle playing out before my eyes in those tabloid headlines. It was there whether I wanted to see it or not. And I did not. Because the story largely paralleled my own experience, and that was painful to watch.

I alternated between thinking it was easier for them because they had money, (while I was struggling for every dime on top of everything else) and being horrified at the thought of having your every bloody wound exposed to the entire world as it was inflicted. At least I could deal with my stuff in relative privacy.

I remember reading an interview shortly after this, (NOT in a tabloid) with the very publicly jilted party in this trio of Beautiful People, wherein she was asked how she was handling the pain. (Original question, I know…) Her answer surprised me and has stayed with me. She said something to this effect:

“Sometimes I just have to sit in the middle of it and let it wash over me. Feel the reality of the pain. It hurts, and I cry, and then I realize I have survived it. And then eventually I can get back up.”

Which the world and I have seen her do often since then.

I would venture to add to this, “Repeat as necessary”. I used to fight back the painful feelings and the tears and the despair. Resist unhappiness at all costs. Be optimistic! Be shiny and happy when people are looking. Laugh instead of crying. This is my nature, this is what I strive for, and gratitude always gets me back there. Eventually.

But I have learned that this process cannot be rushed. Sometimes the best therapy is to sit on the bathroom floor and sob it out for a while. Or collapse on the couch and admit that you are blue, and tell some people about it. Perhaps even put it in writing. Then stay down long enough to steady and strengthen yourself. Long enough to heal, to recharge, or to get some sleep. Perhaps until an outstretched hand extends itself to help you up. Whichever of these things comes first. THEN, get back up.

Life’s “ups” would be meaningless without the “downs”. So it’s ok to stay down for a while. Really. Maybe the next outstretched hand will be yours, reaching down without judgment or condescension to help someone else up from that familiar place. Because you have spent time down there, and you understand.

Learned Lesson Number Eighteen: Choose to Surrender to Truth

We just celebrated Independence Day. For me, this particular holiday sort of marks my surrender of a great deal of my own personal independence, in that my first child was born on that day. And I use the word “surrender” for a reason. It is because I made a conscious choice to give up a certain level of freedom in exchange for the honor and opportunity of being a mother. That said, I certainly had no idea of the extent to which my life would change, and in ways I had not thought of. That little “parenting” exercise we did in high school where we had to carry around a raw egg everywhere we went was a weak representation at best. The first parenting lesson I learned was that a full night’s sleep and sitting down for an entire meal were things of the past. Not that I ever really got the full night’s sleep before, but that is another topic. It’s a different thing entirely when you are CHOOSING to stay up all night.

Agency is kind of a Big Thing. In the religious faith I was raised in, we believe that there was a war waged in Heaven over the right to choose, and that those of us who are here on the Earth are here because we opted for free will. Having said this, the question arises, WHY is the right to choose for ourselves such an intensely important thing? And if we all chose free will before we came here, why does the battle over freedom still rage? I think it comes down to what we believe to be true. And Truth is a tricky subject. Many people have lost their lives over the inability to agree with others about what is true. Every war has roots in that debate.

I am not here to define truth for anyone. Although I do believe that certain things are true no matter what any of us think. I also know there are those who will disagree with me. But I’m pretty sure that the Earth is round, and that we need oxygen to breathe, that fashion trends will always repeat, and that God exists. I also know that there are a great many circumstances in this mortal existence wherein the “truth” varies in the extreme from one individual to the next, based upon individual experience and perception. Which is REAL and VALID, and should never be dismissed. I believe that truth can be found everywhere, that it stands up to any test, and that those who actively seek it will ultimately find it. I also believe that if we love unconditionally and attempt to see things through the eyes of others, MORE truth will become clear to us.

Awhile back, I took a World Religions class at a community college, taught by a professor who had multiple degrees, (a couple from Harvard) and who was very passionate about what he was teaching. He was in his late 70’s and had this deep, booming voice that commanded attention. I was completely blown away by the depth of his knowledge on the subject of religion, and I hung on every word. I was amazed at the thread of common truths that wound through all of the major world religions, and in a class that only barely scratched the surface, I could not get enough information.

Not everyone felt this way. There were a couple of young students in the class that just really did not care about the material, not because they were irresponsible kids, but just because they did not have the age and experience to truly appreciate what this man was trying to teach them. I remember one particular class where the teacher had reached the end of his rope with these kids and he slammed his book down on the table they were sitting at and kind of lost it a little with them. They were obviously shocked at this response, and they did not come back to the class after that. I felt bad for them, for what they were giving up, and for the teacher, who had spent years fighting to obtain the knowledge he had. Because he chose it and fought for it, his knowledge of the truth he was teaching had great value, and he wanted to share that.

A favorite movie scene of mine, (and, ironically, of my former husband) is from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, where there are a certain number of tests that must be passed by certain characters who are trying to obtain the Holy Grail. The respective success and failure of these men was directly connected to their motives and also their knowledge of the truth about what they were seeking. The one with the self-serving motives, who had no knowledge of or respect for Christ, and therefore no clue about what type of cup He would have used at the Last Supper, was literally dissolved away, movie-magic style, after drinking from the wrong cup. The guardian of the Grail then observed, “He chose... Poorly”. The beauty of God’s plan is that we are allowed to choose poorly. And He loves us enough that we are also allowed to choose more wisely the next time around. We also need to allow others that same right.

Years ago, my husband and I attempted marriage counseling. In one particularly memorable session, the counselor asked me what my favorite candy bar was. I told him “Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, of course.” He then asked my husband how much he thought I would enjoy a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup if he took it and jammed it down my throat. If it was my favorite, why wouldn’t I appreciate that? After that session, my husband chose not to return because he felt like the counselor was “taking sides”. He had the right to choose that. And now we are where we are.

The rewards and the consequences of our actions are meaningless when we are compelled, and they are priceless when we have chosen freely. This is true whether the choices we make are good ones or bad ones. If a decision we are compelled by someone else to make turns out to have negative consequences, we tend to blame the other person and learn nothing from the painful experience. And even if the choice is a good one, we cannot possibly appreciate the value of it because we did not choose it.

This particular principle is a challenging one to practice and remember when we find ourselves faced with allowing our children to use their agency. I don’t know if that ever gets easier! Most of my children are legal adults now, and I still feel like I want to make some of the tougher choices for them. Give them the benefit of my experience. But one of those things I believe to be true is that everyone must learn by their own experience, and sometimes that can be tragic. This is where my belief in God and my choice to surrender my will to His comes in.

It might seem contradictory to fight so hard for freedom of choice, only to surrender it again. But I have come to learn that He knows far more about what is ultimately best for me, for my children and for those who I love in this life, all of whom I have zero control over. So I love unconditionally and I lay the hard things at His feet. I trust the truth that He lives and He loves me, which is a truth that I have found enough occasions in my life thus far to test thoroughly. Enough that I am willing to surrender my own will to His.

It has not been easy getting here. And I have to reboot on a daily basis. Work on my relationship with Him. Make that choice to surrender anew, every single day. And the more I practice this, the more I realize that I am not giving up anything. He will never force me to turn to Him. And His plan is so much better than mine. Trust me, I have measured my plans against His, and mine are far less satisfying. What He can do for me is FAR cooler than anything I can come up with on my own. So His is the Truth that I choose. I choose it every day, and I wait with faith and anticipation to see what He will bring me in return.

Learned Lesson Number Seventeen: Repetition Bears Repeating

OK, I know this title sounds like a quote brought to you by the “Department of Redundancy Department”, but bear with me. And know that I will be repeating myself. I am suddenly reminded of a song by “Toad the Wet Sprocket”, wherein the lyrics “I will not repeat myself” are repeated several times… Don’t know why I remember this. Perhaps because I used to play that particular song often. REPEATEDLY, even. Repetition makes things stick. And repetition in combination with music is an unbeatable memory tool. How many silly TV commercials from your childhood do you remember because of this combination? That’s what I thought.

As powerful as repetition is, it can also be frustrating. In fact, it can drive you downright bonkers, depending on what is being repeated. I was just over at My Three Sons’ house, and one of them had written, in marker, on his brother’s mirrored closet doors, the lyrics to “The Song That Never Ends”. Over and over, top to bottom, on both doors. This really made me laugh. And now that stupid song is stuck in my head. Thanks, guys. But my point is taken, right?

Having said that, most, if not all, of the basic spiritual laws that I live by in my adult life, I learned through repetition as a child. Often in conjunction with music. That is how I know that “I Am A Child of God”, and other equally precious truths. In my job as a teachers’ aide this past year, I was reminded first-hand of the power of repetition as I did phonetic drills with small children learning to read. At the end of the year, I got to see first-hand the amazing results of their progress.

There is a character in Greek Mythology by the name of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a king who thought he could hang with the Gods, and consequently got himself condemned to push a rock up a hill for Eternity, only to have it roll back down every time he got it near the top. I have been intrigued with the story of Sisyphus since the first time I heard it. This was sometime during the early years of my marriage, when my days were full of the repetitive tasks that come with having small children and running a home. No matter how many times you change a dirty diaper, there will always be another one. No matter how many times you do the dishes or the laundry, there is always more. I could feel for Sisyphus, even though I have never done any of the evil stuff he did to earn his punishment. Still, I really felt like I was pushing that stupid rock up the hill every day of my life.

Although I have managed to advance beyond dirty diapers, (except in my role as Grandma, which only occasionally requires this of me) I still can relate to Sisyphus. And my interpretation of the story has moved beyond just being able to relate. I now feel like I am a bit closer to accessing the deeper meaning. On its own, the neverending task of pushing a rock up a hill seems tragically pointless. Yet, it follows that the process of doing this over and over again builds up an amazing amount of strength.

One of my favorite movies is a little gem called “Groundhog Day”, where a cranky and selfish Bill Murray finds himself repeating the same day, Groundhog Day, over and over again. Trapped in Punxsutawney, PA, awaking over and over to Sonny and Cher on the radio, he tries every extreme thing he can think of to escape the torture, eventually coming to realize that the only way to break the cycle is to embrace the day and keep trying to get it right.

In assessing the path my life has taken, particularly over the past 5 years, I am seeing the repetition of painful lessons that I keep thinking I have learned, only to have them surface yet again. In many ways, I feel like I have been trapped in Punxsutawney for the past 5 years.

As a single mother facing the sometimes staggering fallout of managing a family split by divorce, (and the very real prospect of remaining alone) I have gained peace and perspective from the repetition of basic truths that I hear when I attend church and go to the temple. Some of these things are repeated word for word, every time, and after years of hearing them this way, they are seared into my soul, and I find I can more readily access them when I need to.

I have found myself, more than once, on my knees, pleading with God about why this crappy stuff keeps happening. Asking Him, “What am I MISSING? Why do I have to go through this AGAIN? How long will this agony last?” If you have been following this blog, you will have already read about some of these experiences. The answer to this series of questions is, of course, that the lesson will repeat until the message sinks in. Until I really embrace the day and get it right. This “day” can take a lifetime, and I know I am not alone when I say that sometimes this is spiritually exhausting. Endlessly repeating the same pleas to the Lord can be emotionally draining. But I do it anyway. And I do it again. And again.

It is often in the repetition of something I have heard so many times before, but never internalized, that I find my answers. I will read a familiar scripture, and it suddenly has personal application to me and whatever I am dealing with. The older I get, the more this happens.

It is starting to sink in for me that repetition is how we keep the good things in our lives, and it’s how we make them better. Including our relationships with the people we love. If we don’t interact with them over and over, love them and tell them, serve them REPEATEDLY, then nothing sticks, and life is empty. We all have to do our time in Punxsutawney. So push the rock up the hill, whether you feel like it or not. And sing along with that annoying song until you find a reason to like it. Then repeat the process.

I have one more parting thought to share with you. There is one thing in life that many people think needs to be repeated that in fact does NOT. When shampooing one's hair, it is NOT, I repeat NOT necessary to repeat after lathering and rinsing. This is just the shampoo companies trying to up their profits. I learned this from David Letterman, and it has saved me maybe hundreds of dollars over the years. Someday I hope to thank him personally for opening my eyes. And now I have opened yours. You're welcome.

Learned Lesson Number Sixteen: Gratitude Is Its Own Reward

I have noticed a pattern in the writing of these things I believe to be true. They always get tested. I write about Faith, and Fear rushes in. I write about Hope, and Despair rushes in. I write about Home, and Emptiness rushes in. I find myself in a position of having to prove and re-prove in my own life these lessons that God is trying to teach me. I have to earn the blessings that come with the learning of the lessons over and over again. God is big on repetition. But that is next week’s message. Today I want to talk about gratitude. I NEED to talk about gratitude. Because I need to FEEL gratitude. I know that when I am overwhelmed by gratitude, there is not so much room for the negative and scary stuff.

This morning I have been unable to get off the couch. I awoke to an emotional weight that brought me to tears and would not let me up. The sense of loss I was feeling for people and places that are suddenly gone from my life was overwhelming. I am sleeping on my sister’s couch because I just returned from a year in Utah, staying with my parents and spiritually “recharging”. I will be moving into a bedroom here, (as soon as I can force myself off the couch to do the work required to set up my space) and I lived in a bedroom in Utah, after God decided I could no longer be trusted with a whole house. As painful as this reality is, I also know it is a gift. One for which I am grateful. At the place I am in my life, it is good to be relieved of the responsibility of maintaining a home. I am grateful to my parents and my sister for offering me a bedroom. That said, I am feeling somewhat impatient about reaching that place where I can finally sustain myself and do for my children the things I have been woefully unable to do.

I am blessed with some unbelievable kids, whom I have missed terribly. I have anxiously anticipated getting back to Arizona to be with them, and the past weekend has been filled with celebrations that did not disappoint. My youngest son turned 13 and my youngest grandson celebrated his first birthday. It was Memorial Day, and my boys are fortunate to have a roommate who has safely returned from 2 tours in Iraq. He grilled burgers for us yesterday. My heart has been filled with thanksgiving and love for all of my children and their friends, (whom I consider my honorary children) as I have been able to laugh with them, eat cake, and listen to them play and sing for me. Four of my kids have been writing music together lately, and could not wait to show me what they have been working on. It gave me chills and brought me to tears, honestly. Writing this down and sharing it with you helps me allow the gratitude to wash over me, and moves me toward healing from the loss of what is missing.

Thursday was my last day as a Teacher’s Aide at Timpanogos Academy in Lindon, Utah. I started this job the day after having spent the night in the ER with a nasty gallbladder attack. I was grateful for the job but not anxious to do it at the time. For the first week, I was miserable and in pain, and extremely fearful that I would let down my mother, who got me the job and had faith in me to do it well. As time went by, I started to create some real friendships with the other aides and the teachers, and also to get really attached to the kids I was working with. I began to look forward to every day, and it started to not feel like a job.

On Thursday, the other aides and I performed for the kids at lunchtime, a version of “We Will Rock You” that I had rewritten the words for, and it was a BLAST! We donned our psychedelic Rock and Roll trappings, slapped on some sunglasses, and just cut loose with it. The kids went nuts, and I cannot remember the last time I had that much fun. There were many heartfelt goodbyes, and a couple of my favorite 4^th-grade boys actually followed me out to the car, hugging me and begging me not to go. It was an overwhelming outpouring of love, for which I will always be grateful. This made my all-night drive across the desert a bittersweet one, but I was blessed to have the strengthening influence of two inspiring audio talks given to me by one of my friends before I left. A friend who has experienced loss on a level I cannot imagine, and yet faces life with gratitude and humor. Thanks, Lori.

I have described this experience as feeling like being “driven out of Eden”, and I think this is a fitting analogy. Adam and Eve would have certainly been comfortable and safe, had they stayed in Eden. But they could never have been with their children. They never would have been polished by the refining fires of adversity, and they never would have truly appreciated joy without experiencing sorrow.

So I am grateful for the sorrow I felt this morning on the couch. It makes the joy, when it comes, so much sweeter. I am grateful for the kind of friends who sense when I need them and call. I am grateful to be able to go babysit my grandsons tomorrow. I am grateful I was able to wash dishes for my boys yesterday. I am grateful for a sister who has opened her home and her heart to me and my son. I am grateful for my white kitty, who has missed me and won’t leave me alone for a minute. I am not so grateful for her white kitty hairs, which are now clinging to everything I own. But I will take it, as adversity goes.

I feel better now. Gratitude is its own reward. Feeling it makes everything better. But to truly feel it, you have to specifically acknowledge it. There’s a reason that we are taught to express it FIRST in our prayers. BEFORE we ask for what we stand in need of. So count your blessings. Name them. Get grateful, and get off the couch.

Learned Lesson Number Fifteen: Be Careful Where You Hang Your Hopes

Hope is a precious thing. Without it we cannot endure. Anything. When we learn how to properly access it, we can endure. Anything. So consider very carefully where you look for hope. And where you choose to put it, once you have found it.

When I was 9 years old, I wanted a horse. Really badly. I fervently hoped I would get a horse for Christmas. It was pretty much all I thought about. It was an impossibility. We lived in the suburbs, in a rental, with a tiny back yard. In spite of my mother’s very rational explanations of why I could not have a horse, I still hoped. In my logical little 9-year-old mind, she was just trying to throw me off with her reasoning. Horses eat grass. We had grass. A horse needs a fence. Got one of those, too. I could take care of the horse, I had read all the books, knew what they ate, how to groom them, and certainly how to love them. And besides, I had been praying for a horse. God would not let me down.

I did not get a horse. I still do not have a horse. My hopes were dashed, and have been many more times since then, and in much harsher ways. Yet I still believe in hope. And I still believe in God.

This is how the dictionary defines hope: “ The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.” I kind of like this definition because it includes an “or”. So often we feel like our hopes have been destroyed because we did not get what we wanted. It is much easier to hang onto hope after not getting what we want when we can believe that the outcome might still be in our best interest. Even if we don’t see or feel that right away, due to our disappointment.

I also found that “expectation” was listed as a synonym for “hope”. I am not sure that I completely agree with this assessment. I think that expectations are closed and hope is open. Expectations are “It needs to be this, and it will be this”, while hope is more “I want it to be this, but if it isn’t, then something better will come”. I think that expectations are Earthly, and hope is Heavenly. This is where God comes in.

Recently while struggling with a rather painful loss of hope, (familiar territory for me the past few years) I looked up “Hope” in the topical guide of my scriptures. I found many inspiring references, but this is the one that linked to my soul, and made me sob just a little:

Romans 8:24-25 “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

This connected with me on a visceral level, because I was in a place of desperately wanting to see evidence of what I was hoping for, and it was not coming. I had prayed for an answer and was led to this scripture. I realized that I was hanging my hopes in the wrong places. I was attaching them to humans and events. Events change, and humans are weak and imperfect, and cannot be trusted with my hopes. I likewise cannot be trusted with the hopes of others. No matter how much I love and trust them. No matter how much I want them to love and trust me.

Real hope, while often delivered via other humans, comes from God, and God alone. He is unchanging and immoveable. He is the only one who can see what “we see not”, and deliver it. And He does it on His timetable, not ours. To truly access real hope, we have to get our lives aligned with God so that we can see the signs He sends to give us hope. If we are aligned with Him, the signs appear where we are looking. I have tested this, and I know it to be true. I hope for many things in my life that are not yet seen. I still hope for a horse. And for much bigger things than that. So I keep the channels open. I look for the signs. I roll with the disappointments in my life, and I forgive the weakness in myself and other humans. My hopes are hanging in a solid and immoveable place. I work daily at keeping them bright, while anxiously awaiting the time when I will be shown what I hope for, but do not yet see.

Learned Lesson Number Fourteen: Be Fiercely Yourself

Who among us really knows who we are? Even when looking in a mirror, what we see is not exactly what others see. The mirror-image is a slightly altered one from the actual image. And then that whole complicated subject of perception comes into play. Two people can view the same person, thing, or situation, and give completely different descriptions, when both are seeing supposedly the very same visual. It’s enough to make your head spin. I recently turned 50, and since I am shooting for the century mark, this means I am only halfway through this earthly journey, and the older I get, the more I realize how little I actually know. Even about myself. Having said this, I also am reasonably certain about the things that I DO know. Thus this “Blog’o’Stuff” that I think I know for sure.

So. Here is what I know about who I am. I believe that God created me with certain basic elements that make up my soul in its original, barest form. In my mind, this original form of Peg is a little girl who looks something like Pippi Longstocking. She is unique and I love her. She is the last version of myself that I remember in her purest form. Before the floods and fires of life began to alter my view. She wears braids and has a pet monkey and keeps a horse in her kitchen, and nobody tells her what to do. She is a grand storyteller, and she does not suffer condescension or those who would be cruel to children. She has superhuman strength, and she is fiercely herself.

This original child is the part of ourselves that God has charged us with protecting and preserving as we bounce through this mortal existence. Each of us is subject to the buffetings of negative circumstances and difficult people. These things alter us, sometimes harshly. It can be scary and lonely. But we are given people who recognize us, along the way. These are our soul mates, and they come in many forms. We need to value and keep them close. They are the ones who love us most and know us best; who retain the ability to see only that original soul when they look at us. I am fortunate to have a number of these people in my life. The ones who have always seen me, no matter how deeply hidden I was.

When I was 20 years old and just getting to know the man I would marry, I found myself wanting him so much that I kept mostly silent. Letting him do the talking, subconsciously hiding the parts of myself that I feared he would not like. Hiding Pippi, who I loved the most. Making her disappear. I cannot blame him for this, I chose to suppress myself, and I must be accountable for that. But the consequences of that choice have been far-reaching and painful. I remember going out for a burger with one of my aforementioned “soul mates” while trying to decide whether to get married. He told me I had changed, and that I even “blinked my eyes differently.” I asked if this was good or bad, and he said, “Just different. Not like you”.

In the movie “Runaway Bride”, a woman becomes somewhat infamous for continually bolting from the altar, and a reporter attempts to discover why this is. He interviews each of the jilted grooms, and asks them all “how does she like her eggs?” Every man’s answer is different, all followed by “She likes them just like I like them.” Ultimately this woman needed to figure out how she really liked her eggs. I should have been bold about how I liked my eggs. It might have saved me a lot of grief. Once you are married and living with a person, it is pretty much impossible to hide your real self. And once the guard came down, my fears that he would not much care for the uncensored, raw version of me were realized. I tried for 23 years to correct this. Decided to start truly being myself and hoping I would grow on him. But alas, he was not a fan of Pippi.

I am not interested in recounting the sad tale of divorce yet again, nor am I interested in placing blame. Part of learning who I am is taking responsibility for my part in how it all played out. I struggle far more with the forgiving of myself than with the forgiving of him. And as far as I think I have come in recent years, there is still a big part of me that is terrified of being me. It is risky to be fiercely oneself, but the alternative is far worse. Trust me.

In finally letting people see who I really am, I risk rejection, and recently I have felt some of that. It is not fun. But in the holding back of my raw self, I assure rejection. Maybe not right away, but eventually. It is far better to put yourself out there and know you have been honest. As the Good Doctor Geisel says, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

A wise bit of advice my mother used to offer me in the rapids of my marriage was to “pray to see him through the Lord’s eyes”, and that always helped. It is a practice I still use, any time I struggle with anyone. If I can see them as I think God sees them, then there is no judgment on my part. It is while trying to see myself through that lens that I often lose my footing, and sometimes I stumble. In fact, lately it has felt like I am face-planting into the pavement on a regular basis. My view of myself is still somewhat skewed, and those pavement-bonding moments do not help with that. But my approach is to actively strengthen my personal relationship with God, in order to better see myself through His eyes. It is a tedious process, but I think it is working. When I look in the mirror, I am recognizing at least an outline of myself again. Because the way that God sees us all is as His children.

One of my assignments while in post-divorce therapy was to write a letter to my childhood self. It was an excruciating task, because I could not find her. At that point, even superhuman strength could not help poor Pippi dig out from under what I had piled on top of her. Finally getting the dirt to loosen has taken coming to Utah and moving into a bedroom in my parents’ house. It has taken getting sick and letting them take care of me. And it has taken going back to the beginning. To elementary school. Where, in my job as a teacher’s aide, I have been blessed with a group of vivacious 4^th-graders who somehow recognize me.

They “high-five” me in the halls and they call me “Pegster” and “Pegasus”. These were my nicknames when I was their age. They figured this out without my having told them. Lately they have taken to pounding on the desks or the lunch tables and singing “We Will Rock You” when they see me coming. I did not instigate this, and while I find it amusing and somewhat gratifying, I am sure the teachers do not. It’s a good thing school is almost out. But I will miss those kids who recognized Pippi in me, enough to help me dig her out. I need her. She is my ticket Home.

The Savior Himself said, “Unless ye become as a little child, ye can in nowise enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” So if you have lost touch with who you really are, find a way to go back to the 4^th grade. Hang out with some 9-year-olds for a while. Find a way to get back there and retrieve your childhood self. Then defend that kid. Fiercely.

Learned Lesson Number Thirteen: Get Schooled

I started college in 1979. Oldest of nine children, I went off to Brigham Young University with high hopes, in clothes I had made for myself and with money saved from three summer jobs. The eight kids still at home meant my folks could not help much financially. I worked in the college bookstore, and majored in art. This was a poorly-considered choice, but it took me a year to figure that out. Art was a highly-competitive major, and I was just not that good at it. I chose BYU in the hopes of getting into their song-and-dance group, “The Young Ambassadors”, and when I was not successful at this, I decided to return to Arizona for the summer and regroup.

I secured a full-time custodial job at Arizona State University. As an employee, I could take classes for next to nothing, so stayed at ASU. I took French and Weightlifting. I stayed up too late and could not choose a major. I leaned toward Photo-journalism, although music was my first love. After a year at ASU, I decided the 4pm to midnight custodial job was interfering with my social life, so I quit and enrolled in Mesa Community College. Working my way backwards, high school was sure to be my next stop. Instead, I met a drummer. He had a band. I wanted to be in it, and I wanted him. Going back to high school might have been a better idea. But I was sold. Quit school, sang in bars and hotel lounges for a year, and married my drummer. Six kids and twenty-three years of marriage boot camp later, I graduated from the School of Dwindling Self-Esteem and found myself in a world where that particular education held no earning power. I knew I needed to go back to Real College. I had enrolled in a couple of classes at MCC a year or two before divorce, but that was quickly halted. I was “using too much gas” and “neglecting my duties at home” in this silly pursuit.

While working out the post-divorce financial arrangement, I quickly learned how fast $300 an hour in legal fees adds up, so naively settled for only four years of alimony, in spite of the guideline for a marriage as long as ours being three times higher. Divorce Math 101. I knew my soon-to-be ex would fight me on the higher numbers, and I figured I had a year of school under my belt, so I would be done in three, giving me a full year to secure a job, and then I would no longer be reliant upon a man who hated me for my support. It seemed logical, and it speeded up the process considerably, while eliminating legal costs.

I had no idea that I would have to withdraw from two semesters in a row because I could not keep my youngest son in school. Or that my 15-year-old daughter would require major spinal surgery, and that her father would use this surgery to try and take possession of both her and her younger brother. After two years of not sleeping at night because I dreaded the morning, which usually greeted me with a kicking, screaming, anxiety-ridden child who had to be stuffed into the car by his brothers and then relegated to the Principal’s office where he would kick the walls all day, I finally opted for an online K12 education for him.

I found some irony in the fact that twice I enrolled in Psychology 101, and twice I had to withdraw from that class to deal with the real-world psychological issues taking place in my own home. And this was upper-division stuff. But I got no college credit for it. What I had learned in two decades of raising children was only marketable in the form of child care, so I took a nanny job for a year, working for a very wealthy blended family. This was an education in social class and morals, and did not end well. Again, no college credit.

After four years of trial and error, I have become most creative in the balancing of my real-world education with my academic education, both of which are ongoing. As I have learned to navigate the world of Financial Aid and online possibilities, and also with the help of family and friends, I am finally within a year of securing that elusive Degree. If asked to sum up what I have learned thus far, my answer would have to be that I have learned that no one is ever fully educated. The lessons will continue to come long after the cap and gown have made their walk.

Learned Lesson Number Twelve: Home Is Not Four Walls

Last year I lost a house, for the fifth time in as many years. The first of these was the house my children mourned losing, the one their father had provided. Beautiful and large, it was the center of where their friends and their lives revolved. I think they mourned the loss of that home at least as much as the departure of their father, who, after choosing his new wife, moved to another house in another state, with another’s children. So nothing felt more urgent to me than providing a real home for my children, whom he had left behind. My resolve and my faith in my ability to achieve this, as their mother, was unwavering. It was my reason for being; finding a home base, where my children would feel safe. I knew they needed to not feel like they were losing everything. And thus the journey toward "home" began.

Year One: a rental, just outside the orbit of familiar people and places, but the only place I could get. Displaced Homemaker, no marketable skills. WalMart job, shattered credit rating. The house was too small. My boys lived in the garage, and would not go to church or school. Faith being central to my survival, I feared my children would lose whatever level of religious faith they had acquired up to that point, so Year Two brought a lease-to-own, closer to their schools and our church. A Good Mother knows the value of the influence of church-going friends and the comfort of being at familiar schools. One year later, I lost the down-payment when I was unable to qualify to purchase the house. Two of my sons had dropped out of high school, and none were attending church. My youngest son had anger and anxiety issues that forced me to withdraw him from public school, and my own educational plans were put on hold. Yet I pressed on in my quest.

Year Three: nanny job with rental house, slightly rural area. More money, but situation with my children deteriorating further, partly due to their father’s unsuccessful attempt to spirit them away. Year Four, nanny job ends, finding us back in our old neighborhood, in a far-too-tiny rental. No credit check required. One side effect of moving a large family out of a large house into increasingly smaller houses is that the amount of stuff that follows, and therefore needs to be managed, seems increasingly larger. By this fourth and smallest house, I felt like a hoarder with all the boxes of STUFF stacked around me. It was memories mixed with junk, and it drained the life out of us all, but I did not have the emotional fortitude to go through it and decide what did and did not matter. Let alone the resolve to throw those things out.

The fifth and final house in this progression would surely be the home that saved my children. Yet another lease-to-own; down-payment forfeited when the deal went south. It turns out, those who require no credit check are often shady themselves, and this was proven to me painfully when I realized how completely I had been ripped off. Alimony running out, most of my children having moved out, and a houseful of stuff which I could not afford to maintain. Two years shy of completing my college degree, and most painful of all, I had failed to make my children a home. They were finding homes of their own. For me, this was Rock Bottom. No money, no job, no home, and no idea why I had failed so miserably. As a mother, as a wife, as a woman. I was in total despair.

I put the stuff in storage, dragged my exhausted self and my youngest son to Utah, and moved into my parents’ home to take refuge. This is where the healing and the epiphany began. The pressure of needing to provide was lifted. My parents made me feel at home. When I returned to Arizona to visit my children, they made me feel at home. I started to see that they still loved me. Unconditionally. They appreciated my efforts to make them a home, and they told me so. I discovered that home is not a location. Once I had let go of the idea that it was the four walls that mattered, I discovered home in many places. In the car, driving cross-country with my youngest son; sleeping on the couch where my three oldest sons, all of whom are gainfully employed and doing just fine, share a home; at my married daughter’s apartment, holding my grandbabies; at church, at a concert, a movie, or enjoying a meal with people that I love. Home is not a structure made of brick and mortar. Home is something you carry with you, that you offer to others. Home is who you’re with, wherever you are, so long as it is built on a foundation of love.

Learned Lesson Number Eleven: Easter is Not About Chocolate

Atonement

I hurt, I fall, land on my knees,

He knows my pain, He feels, He sees.

Each slight, dismissal, injury

Was carried in Gethsemane.

He bled, atoned, for all of those

Who tried and scourged Him, brought Him low.

The bitter gall, the crown of thorns,

Through the streets, the cross was borne.

When, in despair, I plead with Him

To take from me the weight of sin,

The ache of loss, the grief undone,

He took it all, the battle’s won.

I smile through tears, healed by degrees.

Get on my feet, from off my knees

And do the work He gave to me,

That I may go, renewed, to be

With Him for all Eternity.

Learned Lesson Number Ten: Kindness is Never Foolishness

When I was in college the first time, some 30-plus years ago, I read a story in my Freshman English class at BYU that had a profound effect upon my life. It was written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and is entitled “Gimpel the Fool”. Gimpel was an orphan who was simple and without guile. Because of his nature, he was a target his entire life. Everyone in the village where he lived engaged in dispensing ridicule and lies that were directed at Gimpel, for the sake of nothing more than their own entertainment. In spite of this, Gimpel chose to never get angry or take revenge upon anyone, even though he was large in stature and could have taken most of them out at any time. Even though he usually did know when they were lying to him. Instead he chose to perpetually extend the benefit of the doubt to all who would mess with him, because he did not want to take the chance that his disbelief or his vengefulness might hurt another. “What was I to do?” said he, “I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good.” Gimpel chose to take the advice of his rabbi, which was, "It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself."

The story of Gimpel was not a happy one. He was horribly taken advantage of throughout his life, choosing always to see and embrace the good in those who treated him most miserably. When he came to the end of his days, he had no regrets, because he had never dished evil to a living soul. He was prepared and without fear, saying, “When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.”

I have been gently accused, from time to time in my life, of being a “doormat”, of not standing up for myself when I was being taken advantage of. And without dwelling upon parts of my life that I am now mostly free of, sometimes they were right. I hate conflict, and would always rather take the brunt of any unkindness than ever dish it out myself. Not that I haven’t occasionally engaged in a few biting and cynical dialogues in my head when I felt attacked. But I can never bring myself to actually carry them out. The act of making anyone feel even slightly bad about anything, even (maybe especially) if they deserve it, is just not in my repertoire. I blame my mother for this. She does not have a mean cell in her body. When I was a small child, growing up in the 1960’s, she used to often quote a line from the movie “Bambi”, spoken by a repentant little bunny called Thumper, whose mother had taught it to him… “If ya can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” She must have said this to us a lot, because it is so deeply ingrained in my memory. My mother lives by these words. I can honestly not remember a single time in my entire life that I have ever heard her speak an unkind word about anyone. And I have seen her deal kindly with those who deserved otherwise. This is what I aspire to.

I have six children, and I spend a whole lot of time beating myself up over the many ways I believe I have failed them over the years. None of us is perfect when it comes to parenting. But I believe that they have picked up this one concept along the way somehow, because they are mostly kind to each other. (Sometimes in their own unique, biting, and cynical way!) But they take care of each other, and I find that gratifying. I tell them repeatedly (and try to show them as well) that there is nothing in life that matters more than how they treat others. NOTHING. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Without exception. There is a reason that particular Rule is called the Golden one.

I saw a movie once, can’t remember what it was called, but it was about a guy who had treated people horribly his entire life, then had a near-death experience, from which he returned with the unwelcome ability to feel exactly what he had made other people feel. As time went by, he discovered that his own life was far less painful if he treated the people around him with kindness. Well, DUH! My own personal theory about Judgment Day, and Heaven versus Hell in the life after this one, is that a similar rule will apply. That the definition of both Heaven and Hell is the same; You will simply feel what you have caused others to feel. The Savior Himself has put no small emphasis on this particular concept. “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Pretty basic. As it says on the wall in my mother’s house, “Nice Matters”. Thumper and I have wise mothers. And Gimpel was no fool. When in doubt, always err on the side of kindness. What’s the worst that could happen?

Learned Lesson Number Nine: Learn to Enjoy the Long Drive

Last week I was trying to decide if a short trip to Arizona would be worth the long drive. I had some days off work, I missed my kids, and there were some friends’ events that I wanted to attend. But gas is high, and money is low, and it meant two all-nighters driving for a three-day stay. I found myself weighing the value against the cost. I chose to go, even though on the surface, the cost seemed to be nosing ahead of the value. I just had this feeling that getting there was important. So I got in the car and started driving.

I drive a lot. A LOT. This practice started early for me. I was in a really big hurry to get my drivers’ license, so the minute I turned 16, I was there. With bells on, whatever that means. Bells, but not shoes. That’s right, I was so excited that I couldn’t even keep my shoes on. Although the examiner was unaware of it, I took my test in my bare feet. I felt like I had more control with nothing between my skin and the gas pedal, so I slipped off my sandals and kicked them under the seat. I still often drive this way. (Don’t tell anyone. I am not sure it’s legal.)

I took my drivers’ test in downtown Phoenix in the spring of 1977, in a gigantic green beat-up Dodge van that seated something like 16 people. Well, maybe 12. It was big. Parallel parking was out of the question. Which is why I went to Phoenix, instead of Tempe, where I lived. No parallel parking required. Since I was the oldest of 9 children and therefore the first to acquire a license, my mother took full advantage of my constant desire to get behind the wheel, and she used me to shuttle kids from place to place wherever possible. I of course worked these jaunts into detours to pick up my friends and cruise around places like Main Street in Mesa, and the campus of Arizona State University, where many “foxy” (hey, it was the 70’s..) college boys could be found. It did not take long before my identity was somewhat entwined with that of the big ugly green van.

In my early 20’s, I found myself travelling in a white Ford Econoline cargo van, which did not have power steering or back windows, and belonged to my future husband, who was, at the time, a dark and brooding temptation to me. He was a drummer and I was the Chick Singer. We had a road band, and I was certain we were on the path to all of our musical dreams coming true. We covered a vast portion of the country over the course of a year or so, playing in hotel lounges and bars in places like Roswell, New Mexico, Lawton, Oklahoma, and yes, even Nashville, Tennessee. Play for a week or two, drive for a day or two. Talking, listening to music, dreaming of the future by the full moon. As long as we were driving, I was enveloped in the illusion that I was actually going somewhere. Often the destination was disappointing, but the next drive always gave me renewed hope.

After we were married, we moved often, with several of these moves being cross-country ones, as my husband followed contract jobs from place to place, and we followed him. The vehicles shifted, from cargo van, to mini-Blazer, to mini-van(s), to gas-guzzling Suburban. Moving was exciting when the kids were little, before it meant uprooting them from their friends and the things that they knew. The big moves were to places like Seattle, Detroit, Albuquerque, St. Louis, and Dallas. There were many smaller moves about the Phoenix area, and many trips between family in Utah and New Mexico. We moved at least once every single time that I was pregnant, (3 times with kid number 5) and some of those moves I made on my own. I really didn’t mind, because although the job was hard without him, it was also easier without him. Once I had all of my children contained in their seatbelts and carseats, I felt, at least briefly, that I had some control over my life. I could choose the music, escape into my mind, (where there was far less stress than in my real life) keep the wheels between the lines, and just GO. Forward motion. All was well. For 8 hours, or 12 hours, or 3 or 4 days. My life between the long drives was considerably more difficult.

In the 5 years since I got divorced, the long drives have been even more frequent, and approaching the destination has been increasingly fraught with varying levels of drama and stress, as I have shuttled my kids between Arizona and Utah to visit their father. He remarried and relocated very quickly, and the transition has not been a smooth one, particularly for my youngest son, who is the only one of my 6 kids who still lives with me. But a surprising thing has happened, along this bumpy road; I have really internalized the concept of embracing the journey. Even (perhaps especially) when I know there will be ugliness and difficulty at the end of the road.

My 12-year-old son, who used to be filled with anxiety and anger every time we had to make the drive from the desert to the mountains, now often turns off the music because he just wants to talk. We solve all the problems of the Universe, we hash out movie script ideas, we discuss religion and relationships, and forgiveness and possibility. He reads me song lyrics he has written. We eat Cheetos and drink YooHoo. He regales me with the plot of every episode of South Park, in spite of my protests. He wants to know what life was like for me in the 70’s. He asks me to sing “Blue Moon” for him, and then tells me, in all sincerity, as we drive in the moonlight with the sunroof open, that it is the most amazing thing he has ever heard. This from a kid who knows every word to every song that “Linkin Park” has ever recorded. (Which we also listen to, with the volume up.) We are planning a cross-country road trip for the summer of 2012, to see all the coolest landmarks. You know, just in case. Perhaps we will make our own documentary about that, and enter it in a film festival. My life on the road is a rich one, where all things are possible.

Since we have been staying in Utah for the year, the place we used to live has become the place we visit, (and vice versa) and the emotions and the homesickness that go with that have been challenging for us both. But the long drives that tie these two places together have often been where we gain our strength and perspective. When you feel like your life is not going where you want it to go, it can be refreshing to throw it in a car and drive it in a direction of your choosing for awhile. You at least have the illusion that you are going somewhere, and maybe you can figure some things out on the way about where you really are.

My long drive to Arizona and back last weekend was filled with questions and answers, respectively. The short stay in between was fulfilling and clarifying, in ways I did not expect. It was also fun. Never underestimate the value of fun. And although the cost was fairly close to what I had calculated, the value continues to increase even after my return. I don’t think this would be true if I had taken an hour and a half flight instead of making the long drive. There is no shortcut to embracing the journey. So put the key in the ignition, roll down the windows and crank up the music, put your bare foot on the gas pedal, and move forward. And don’t forget to buckle up.

Learned Lesson Number Eight: He Only Asks An Hour Of Us

I am a Christian. I am also a Mormon. I am not interested in debating the fact that those two things go together. I just need to preface these thoughts with the foundational truth that I am a believer in Christ, because that is what this particular message is about. I am a highly imperfect Christian. I try every day to better live my life in such a way as to honor Him and His sacrifice for me. I fail miserably a large portion of the time. I am ever learning more about what that sacrifice actually was, and today in church there was a talk given about the Atonement, so I paid very close attention. Because I was feeling a particular sense of unrest about some things, I desperately wanted to hear something that would give me a measure of peace. It was not really a particular comment that stood out to me, but the story was told of when Christ asked his disciples to join him in the Garden of Gethsemane while he prayed about the staggering challenge he was about to face. He asked if they could just “watch with Him” for an hour.

This did not mean they had to experience what He was experiencing, or take part in any way. Just watch. Just stay awake. Just be there, looking His direction. For one hour. And they couldn’t do it. None of us could have. It was here where He took on the sins of the world. It was here where He descended below all things for each of us. That is far too monumental for any of us to comprehend on any level that would matter. Even if we were there, awake, and watching, we would have seen pain and had empathy, but it would not have been possible for any of us to know the true nature of His burden. Our burdens. Which He willingly took upon himself, so that we could have a chance at all. So that we could be forgiven of not lasting even an hour with Him.

It struck me as I was listening to this account today, (and certainly not for the first time) that this experience is recorded in the Bible to illustrate to us that He only asks an hour of us. This whole seemingly endless string of challenges we all have to face in life is really only a relatively brief moment in the grand scheme of things. Just an hour. And when we can’t make it the whole hour, He extends His hand and takes us the rest of the way. But we have to be looking His direction in order to see His outstretched hand. And then we have to reach out and take it. How hard is that, really? My hour has been feeling long lately, and while I am still struggling with a lack of peace, I at least know that if I am doing my best to “watch with Him”, He will take me the rest of the way.

Learned Lesson Number Seven: I'm In Great Shape Under All This Fat

I know that this statement seems contradictory, so I suppose the first thing I should do is explain where this presumably oxymoronic (or perhaps simply “moronic”?) idea came from. Obviously, the question of weightiness has played a recurring role in my adult life, because a) I am a woman, and b) I have borne children. The “c” that goes with this “a” and this “b” is, of course, that I have been on diets. I have been on all of them. Just call me the “target demographic” of the weight-loss industry. After having given birth to a half-dozen not-so-tiny human beings over the course of fifteen years, I think I can safely say that I know the drill. I know what is expected “after the baby”; Low-fat versus low-carb, aerobics versus yoga, Pilates versus lap-band surgery, the beckoning call of the “skinny jeans” versus a frazzled new (and new again) mother’s precarious state of mind.

Somewhere between kid number five and kid number six, I had a brief encounter with common sense and decided to ditch all the diets and desperate ideas, deprive myself of nothing, and just start walking every day. The goal was not even to lose weight, just to clear my head a little and find a way to justify listening to as many audio books as possible. A surprising thing came out of this experience. I started to feel less precarious about my mental state. I really did not notice whether or not I was losing pounds, only that I could see more clearly, and a little further, down the previously foggy road ahead. And I felt stronger. Physically, spiritually, and emotionally stronger.

During this time, I was having a conversation with a friend who jokingly commented about being too cool to hang out with people who were not physically fit. My response to this was, “Whatever, I am in great shape under all this fat!” This comment caused my friend to laugh hysterically. Because it was such a ludicrous comment. And because it was funny. I remember making a mental note to myself at the time that this would make a good title. For exactly what, I did not know. I knew it could generate a laugh, and that there must be some truth to it on some level, or I would not have thought to say it. So. Into my hoarder’s paradise of a brain the idea went, along with so many other as-yet-unrealized (and possibly unrecoverable) grand ideas I have tripped over along the way. But this one kept rising to the top, briefly jogging my memory, then returning to the depths once more.

Not long after this, I became pregnant with my sixth and final contribution to the earth’s population, and in the process managed to bury myself once more, both literally and figuratively. At the same time, my always shifting and shaky marriage was starting to crumble under the strain, finally giving out altogether when my youngest child was seven years old. In the five years since divorce, as I have attempted to achieve some level of stability for my kids and myself, I have often felt like I was trapped inside a giant chunk of immovable stone, unable to turn my head in any direction, to hope, or even to breathe. I kept having this recurring image from my college art history class, of myself as one of those unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo, knowing there was something more under the rock that was beautiful and useful, perhaps even valuable, if I could just find a way to get it out.

With my mind continually churning through ideas about how to accomplish this, that old idea about “being in great shape under the fat” started to surface more and more often. As I began gaining enough strength, by small degrees, to finally start moving forward, the truth of that supposedly contradictory statement began to become clear to me.

In the course of my many attempts to fight off the excess fat over the years, I learned a few things about weight-lifting that stuck with me; In order to build up muscle, you first have to break it down, through exertion, to the point of exhaustion. Between these sessions of breaking down the muscle tissue, you have to give it time to rest and rebuild, and when it does, it becomes stronger and able to lift and carry more weight. This was one of those concepts I knew because I had heard it repeated so many times, yet I felt like a failure because I was not so great at exercising it by getting to the gym to actually lift weights. I am not sure exactly when the realization sunk in that I was gaining strength simply by virtue of lifting and carrying the weight that was already on me. Literally, figuratively, and repeatedly. I actually was in great shape under all that fat.

When that idea finally planted itself firmly in my mind and heart, I knew what I needed to write about. I was able to pluck that one aging idea out of the swirling mass of accumulated knowledge in my brain, polish it up, and fix it firmly in the foreground. Once I did this, it became easier to recognize some of those other things rolling around in my head that I know to be true. This is where the idea for this blog came from, and I hope to shape these thoughts into book form in the not-too-distant future. The idea is that this process will make space in my brain for all of the new knowledge I plan to accumulate in the second half of my century on this planet. That’s right. I said “my century”. I fully intend to write a sequel to this book in another fifty years.

As I have given more thought to that feeling of being trapped in solid and unforgiving rock, like one of Michelangelo’s unfinished masterpieces, it has occurred to me that many of those pieces are just as famous and considered to be just as valuable as the ones that he did finish. They are in museums, too. In fact, when I went back and studied some of these statues again, they struck me as almost being more breathtaking than the polished and refined versions. They certainly stirred up more emotion in me. The passion of the struggle and the perfection of the parts that have managed to emerge, in stark contrast to the rock, represent the reality of the struggle that we all face each day. And they are in great shape under all that rock.

Perhaps it was a conscious decision on the part of Michelangelo to leave some of them unfinished. Perhaps it was a conscious decision on the part of the original Master to leave some of us unfinished. Perhaps they both saw the full value of the individual work in its unfinished form, and knew that it would have just as much intrinsic value as the works that were fully polished and refined.

I, for one, certainly don’t feel that I am fully polished and refined yet. Not by any stretch of my now slightly less-cluttered imagination. But because I know that the Master sees my full value, regardless of how much or how little of me has managed to emerge thus far, I can say with confidence that I am in great shape under all this weight I have yet to shed. And I am grateful for the opportunity to carry it, as far as I need to carry it.